


Lessons in Survival

by How_To_Be_A_Fangirl_101



Series: Lessons [1]
Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Animal Death, Mono is the puppy, Six is basically a cat, Six isn't great at emotions but she's trying, Six tries to be helpful, hunger, you can guess who's responsible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:27:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29765157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/How_To_Be_A_Fangirl_101/pseuds/How_To_Be_A_Fangirl_101
Summary: Six has come to a realization.Mono is an idiot. But he’s her idiot. And, more than that, he’s somehow her friend.So, in the spirit of friendship, she has to teach him how to fend for himself.
Relationships: Six & Mono
Series: Lessons [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2187654
Comments: 8
Kudos: 166





	Lessons in Survival

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, you and I know that Six really just wants to wrap Mono up in blankets because he’s far too precious for the world, but she doesn’t know that. Shh, she’ll figure it out for herself. Probably. Maybe. 
> 
> Mono is flamboyant, and there is nothing you can say that will change my mind. He’s also taller than Six because the official art of him has him looking a few inches taller than her. And in a world where they’re so small compared to the surroundings, I’d imagine that any amount of height helps. And, yes, Six is low-key (read: high-key) jealous of it. 
> 
> My reading of Six is that she’s coldly practical – not particularly sadistic, per se, but completely willing to do whatever it takes to survive and not getting upset at things that have already happened. So, when Six warms her hands at the Doctor’s pyre, she’s not mocking his death but rather taking advantage of how he died. And when Mono leaves her alone and she goes off to break a prosthetic arm, she’s trying to learn about biology because who knows what’ll end up being useful. Granted, this isn’t much better than how canon Six is represented, but I think it’s at least a little better. 
> 
> This is inspired by something I read about how cats think we’re idiots and bring us dead animals so that we can learn how to hunt.

Six knows things. She knows that food is a luxury. She knows that she can’t afford to trust anyone or anything she might encounter. She knows that survival means taking what isn’t yours, and that sometimes you have to destroy what you take to make the enemy weaker.

But Mono. He doesn’t know anything at all. Worse, he might not even care. He’s like a stupidly tall nome, all hugs and holding hands; he even tilts his head like a nome when she does something he doesn’t understand. It exasperates her, how he’s always reaching out. Can’t he see that sooner or later someone will snap his hand off? For a while, she thought it would be her. Everything about him, from his bag to his trench coat, annoyed her. It was like he thought being flashy would stop him from getting eaten. From what she can remember, that only works with colorful frogs.

Nothing about him was practical. Whenever his bag got wet, he refused to take it off, even though it would sag into his eyes and limit his sight. He kept holding her hand, even when they would both run faster if he let go. He would wait at the edge of every leap they had to make, and would steady her if she landed wrong. The only thing close to practical he did was to attach keys to his belt, and even then, she was half-convinced he only did it because he thought it looked cool.

It made her teeth hurt, just how soft he was. He couldn’t even go around a dead body without feeling queasy.

And then, somewhere along the line, she let it get to her. Maybe it was when she was hanging upside down, fully prepared to gnaw her way through anything in her way – even a metal door, even a bully, even her _leg_ – if it would help her escape. The bullies had strung her up because she’d already broken a few of them to pieces trying to get free. He’d barreled into the room, dragging a hammer, and smashed in their heads. She’d been so shocked that she barely remembered to twist around to protect her head. And then he’d ran over to make sure she was alright. Like one of those dumb heroes from the few books she’d bothered to scavenge and read. Or maybe it was when she launched herself at a bully and savagely caved his head in and when she looked up, Mono was standing in place with another hammer held loosely in his fists. He’d gaped at her while she slowly stood up, feeling foolish. He’d shaken himself, dropped the hammer, then waved her toward him to help with opening the drawer. He hadn’t really needed help, but she likes to think that he’d been reassuring her that he wasn’t going to leave.

So, she let herself lean into this softer emotion. She felt it every time he excitedly showed her another hat he’d found, every time he swung open a fridge to exaggeratedly grimace at the contents with her, every time he trusted her to catch him and save him from the long way down.

But, she soon realized that he was _soft_ , soft in a way that alarmed her. Which brings her to the current problem. How can she teach him these things? Talking is dangerous, and they don’t really have anything to scribble on. She could try gesturing, but that would make her look stupid and probably wouldn’t work. Maybe she could give him an example and _show_ him. Yes, that’s what she’ll do.

\-----

Her first attempt is when they’re wandering the streets of the city. She’d slipped away, and returned to find him frantically scouring the alleys and whisper-shouting “Hey!” as if to coax her out. When she’s visible, he rushes toward her, looking her over. She grins a little – she’s fine, and look! She holds up her prey, a rat that she’d ambushed and taken down with a chomp to the neck _just like she’d done with the L – who?_ and hands it to him for his perusal.

He looks at it like he doesn’t know what to do with it. Helpfully, she bares her teeth and mimes biting. She also points at the rat and then at him to emphasize her point. He still sits there, like a lump, then _finally_ , he moves. But he sets the rat down and starts to walk away! No!

She picks it up and, more forcefully, shoves it at him. He takes it again, looking from it to her a few times, but still doing nothing. Sighing, she grabs it and puts it down again. Feeling like an idiot, she recreates her hunt, pretending to stalk around the rat, before leaping from a hill of garbage to land on it and acting out savaging its throat. Panting a little, she looks up to see if he understands.

Uncertainly, he brings his hands up and starts to clap.

She lets her head thunk against the still-warm fur of the rat.

\-----

Okay, so maybe getting him to hunt was too big for him to understand right away. She tries something else. Her second attempt is in the hospital.

She hoists him up to the access hole in the bars, and watches the faint bobbing of his flashlight slowly fade away as he forges forward. After a few minutes, she’s bored. What could she do? Remembering the nice anatomy lesson she just taught herself and Mono’s half-whisper half-gesture story about the hands, she gets an idea.

It’s fairly easy to track down a living hand and break its bones one at a time. She dodges around its blind leap, then quickly brings her full body weight onto it, riding out its struggles until it weakens enough that she can free one of her hands.

It goes quickly enough, and she drags it back to the hallway before Mono is back. Leaving it in front of her, she clambers up a bucket and amuses herself by clanging her heels against the metal.

When he comes back, he slides under the boards and into the room, looking wide-eyed and panting from fear and exertion. He takes a breather for a few minutes, before straightening up and looking at the unrelenting hands grabbing for him. He glances back at her, mischievous, and throws a nearby ball at the hands. He laughs when it gets thrown back, and the sound is too loud and too quiet in the derelict air of the hospital. Somewhat guiltily, she nudges the hand at her feet. Maybe he likes the hands and is going to be mad that she killed one? No, he told her about the other hands. But what if he only killed them in self-defense? He does hate killing. After the Hunter, he’d told her that he just wanted to threaten the man into letting them go, and that he hadn’t expected the gun to go off. No, that’s why she’s doing this; he needs to learn that it’s important.

She’s drawn back to herself when the lights flicker around her; the chair is fizzing and sparking, and the fuse jettisons itself dramatically. He picks it up and puts it in the tray, and her sudden weight flings it in the air. They both giggle.

She fits it into the slot, fighting the silly urge to brush at her raincoat as the door slides open. He walks out, then jumps away as he sees the hand. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to place it out of immediate sight. She holds out her hands to show that it’s alright, then drags her prey a few feet to show that it’s dead. He relaxes, then turns to go.

“Hey!” She whispers to catch his attention. 

This time, she plants it firmly in front of him and mimes eating. Once again, his reaction is one of confused silence. His head even tilts. Rolling her eyes, she grabs the bottom of his bag to yank him down.

“Hey!” He says, feeling his bag to make sure it’s fine. It is; she didn’t pull that hard.

She points – hand, mouth, Mono. She sees the moment he realizes, because his whole body stiffens. He vigorously shakes his head, scrambling to stand up or move back. He almost shakes his bag off, so she doesn’t protest too much when he drags her away by her hand.

When the Doctor goes up in flames, she sits by the door, warming herself, and gets another idea. What if he’s never had food that wasn’t cooked? Clearly, he already knows to eat, because he’s lived this long. Maybe he’s picky and doesn’t want to eat his food raw. Cooking can’t be all that hard; she could learn and then teach him!

\-----

She doesn’t have time in the city to find a kitchen to practice in.

She gets snatched before she can even find one.

\-----

As a shadow, Six barely has any sense of self, let alone a more delicate grasp of the finer parts of interpersonal relationships.

She can’t control her body.

She can’t control her mind.

She

can’t

control

her

_hunger_

**Author's Note:**

> I think I’m on the side of LN2 being a sequel. Why? Well, I think that after Very Little Nightmares, Six managed to find the raincoat and get to the city where she is kidnapped by the Ferryman. The Ferryman is known for taking children to the Maw, so it follows that the events of the LN take place after. So far, this is nothing new. But as for LN2 being a sequel, why would Glitchy Six point to the poster of the Maw unless it means something to her? Besides, the conundrum of Six not being hungry in LN2 can be explained if the Transmission was suppressing miscellaneous things like hunger. The Viewers are still alive, which means that the Transmission is somehow sustaining the lives of everyone inside it. Maybe Six was far enough away in the Wilderness so that her powers could keep her alive for a month. Or maybe there were enough TVs in the Wilderness to boost the Transmission out that far. 
> 
> I tried to make it ambiguous in this fic, so that you can take it either way. I also hinted that the reason why Six lets Mono fall in the end is because her body is essentially moving around without her ‘soul’. She might have the memories, but she definitely doesn’t have any of the warm fuzzies Six developed on the way. I also hinted that Six’s hunger bleeds into Shadow Six, which is why she can muster up a visible form when Six eats on the Maw, if LN is actually the sequel.


End file.
